During his stay in Paris from 1911 to 1914,
Chagall created a sizable body of works of unrivalled originality that set him
apart from his contemporaries. For the young artist, this period was all the
more productive because his eclectic training in Vitebsk and later in St.
Petersburg – working with Léon Bakst in particular – had prepared him for the aesthetic
upheavals that were taking place in the French capital. His first paintings,
with their powerful images – such as The
Dead Man (1908–1909), The Couple,
also known as The Holy Family (1909,
MNAM), and The Holy Family (1910,
Zurich, Kunsthaus) – had some elements in common with Neoprimitivism.
Introduced by Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova to the young generation
of Russian painters, this movement effected a synthesis among the European
avant-gardes and the popular national imagery which was rooted in everyday
life.

Despite his meagre resources, which were
partially offset by a scholarship from Maxim Vinaver, a deputy and one of his
patrons, Chagall decided to go to Paris, a city that was then in full artistic
effervescence, to see how his own art stacked up against that of his
contemporaries. In My Life, a book he
wrote in 1922 confirming his early penchant for autobiography, he calls to mind
the three years he spent in Paris, placing his arrival in France in 1910 rather
than in the spring of 1911, which was when he actually arrived.2 This
information came to light only recently3 and is important because it allows us
to accurately date certain Chagall works from 1911, rather than 1910 as
inscribed on the canvases of these paintings.

Such is the case with The Wedding, a painting in which the organization of coloured space
alludes to the work undertaken by Robert Delaunay in his Cubist-inspired Cities,where the Eiffel Tower makes its first appearance. In the same
way, Studio owes a great deal to
Matisse, who was actively pursuing this theme and whose Pink Studio Chagall had probably seen at the 1911 Salon des
Indépendants (Exhibition of Independent Artists), an exhibition he attended as
soon as he arrived in Paris. This painting, set in the living room studio on
the Impasse du Maine in the heart of Montparnasse, where the painter lived at
the beginning of his stay, also reveals the influence of Van Gogh and the
attraction that Expressionism held for Chagall.

During the winter of 1912, he settled in at
La Ruche, located at 2 Rue de Dantzig, remaining there until he returned to
Russia in May 1914. He took up residence on the second floor in the famous
rotunda of this complex with its 140 studios where artists could live and work
cheaply. Many yet-to-be-known artists lived at or frequented La Ruche at that
time, including Fernand Léger, Henri Laurens, Alexander Archipenko, Ossip
Zadkine, Jacques Lipchitz, Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné, Amadeo Modigliani, Chaim
Soutine and Moses Kisling. Russians and Poles were the first to arrive, mostly
Jews who had been driven out of their home countries by the pogroms.

In the midst of what he called “the
artistic Bohemia of all countries,” Chagall preferred isolation. He was
intensely active, devoting a part of his nights to his work and undertaking numerous
studies for his paintings. He set a goal for himself: “I was fervently
preparing for the Salon exhibitions.”4 In the months that followed his
arrival, Chagall, together with his friend Alexander Romm, also a former
student of Léon Bakst, attended the Académie de La Palette where Henri Le
Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger taught. They also frequented the Académie de la
Grande Chaumière where they were able to paint from models. Chagall took
advantage of these opportunities to experiment with Fauvism and Cubism, which
he was discovering at the time, and produced a remarkable group of gouache
nudes, including Nude with Fan (1911).
However, it was through his exposure to the works he saw during his visits to
the Louvre, to the Bernheim, Durand-Ruel and Vollard galleries, as well as the
Salon exhibitions that he truly learned his craft: “No academy could have given
me everything I discovered through my fixation on the exhibitions, showcases
and museums in Paris.”5 He became aware of how French painting,
regardless of the period, differed from his own artistic heritage. This
difference was even more pronounced in contemporary art.6

Chagall was present at the inaugural gathering
of Cubist artists, who made their first appearance at the 1911 Salon des
Indépendants, where works by Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Léger, Le Fauconnier and
Metzinger were displayed in the same room. A few months later, he attended the
Salon d’Automne (Fall Exhibition). At that time, he took stock of the distance
between his own art and this revolutionary aesthetic, and although he dismissed
the principle of deconstruction-reconstruction, which caused the subject to
disappear, he did adopt some of the processes such as the geometrization of
forms or the techniques of transparency. Over the course of his three years in
Paris, Chagall would manage to merge two elements which, at first glance, seem
contradictory: on the one hand, there was his Jewish and Russian culture
steeped in tradition; on the other hand, he had come face to face with Cubism
and its offshoots, which were the embodiment of modernity at the time. “And so,
a type of dualism took shape in me. One part of me was filled with enthusiasm
for these ingenious examples of formal art (…) but, in spite of everything, my
soul sank into a certain sadness and longed to find a way out.”7

The distance from his native Russia
rekindled his memories and intensely fed his imagination while, at the same
time, he appropriated the various passing styles of the day with astonishing
speed and eclecticism, though never fully subscribing to them. A perfect
demonstration of this phenomenon can be found in his reinterpretation of
certain subjects which he had first explored in Russia and then took up again in
Paris, such as Birth. The first
version (Zurich, Kunsthaus), painted in 1910, was naturalistic, while the
second (Munich, private collection), made the following year, was painted in a
Fauvist style. Meanwhile, the third version (The Art Institute of Chicago),
also dating from 1911, offered a Cubist vision.

For Chagall, Cubism was a framework that
provided formal and chromatic potentialities which he could use by turns
without relinquishing his aspirations. Adam
and Eve (1912, St. Louis Art Museum) is one of his most Cubist works, with
its two major characters formed of cubes and hemispheres that fit into one
another; it recalls Léger’s Wedding (1911)
and belongs without question to the universe of the painter from Vitebsk. In
this work, Chagall also blended both naturalistic elements (the apple tree and
its fruit) and animals that took on bizarre appearances because of their
reduced size. When Chagall, following the example of Delaunay, used the vivid
and contrasting colours of Orphism, he did so with a totally different purpose
in mind. For him, it was not a matter of exploring “pure painting” but of
combining animated scenes with ranges of colour (contained in circles and other
geometric shapes) in order to better highlight the symbolism. We can see this
in such works as The Wedding (1911–1912), Russian Village under the Moon (1911–1912;
Munich, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst) and Golgotha (1912, New York, MoMA). Using a language congruent with his time, Chagall was
able to tackle all the themes close to his heart, including those that had
fallen out of currency, such as his amorous passion or his firm belief in
religion.

His encounter with Cendrars was one of the
most crucial meetings that Chagall was to have during his years in Paris. The
two of them apparently met in late 1912 or early 1913.8 Cendrars had
lived in Russia and was fluent in Russian, and both shared a love for that
country along with feelings of rootlessness. Cendrars celebrated their
friendship in some of his poetry, notably in “Elastic Poem 4.” Another
similarity between them can be seen in their respective creative approaches
through image associations.9 Cendrars translated Chagall’s thoughts
and provided the definitive titles for five of his best paintings executed in
Paris: To Russia, Donkeys and Others (1911, MNAM), I and the Village (1911, New York,
MoMA), Dedicated to My Fiancée (1911,
Bern, Kunstmuseum), The Poet, or Half
Past Three (1911, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Louis and Walter Arensberg
Collection) and The Holy Coachman (1911–1912, private collection).

Cendrars also brought his friend into
contact with the Delaunay couple, who often entertained a large number of
artists. Another person who took an interest in Chagall was the Italian poet
Ricciotto Canudo, who was a friend of both Cendrars and Apollinaire, the art
critic and founder of Montjoie!, a
publication that considered itself to be the journal of all the avant-gardes.
Canudo organized a one-day exhibition of Chagall’s drawings on the premises of
where the journal was printed. Among those in attendance were Gleizes, Metzinger,
Roger de La Fresnaye, Léger, André Lhote, André Dunoyer de Segonzad and “so
many others”10 whom Chagall saw on a regular basis at Canudo’s
Monday gatherings.

Within this artistic and literary circle,
Apollinaire played a leading role by way of his many acquaintances and through
his role as an art critic (he had been writing for the journal L’Intransigeant since 1910). Chagall was
happy to attract Apollinaire’s attention via Cendrars, though he knew that the
author of Alcools, who was also an
advocate and friend of Delaunay and the Cubists, did not fully subscribe to his
art. These affinities with men of letters illustrate that the latter were the
first to recognize the painter’s pictorial language, and also showed the
greatest sensitivity to his ambivalent situation as an artist divided between
two cultures.11 Yet Chagall’s universe of fiction and metaphors,
while derived from reality, was too complex and “supernatural,” to use
Apollinaire’s term, to convince the followers of Cubism and, more generally,
the critics and artists: they were left perplexed by this uncategorizable
painter.

In titling one of his paintings Homage to Apollinaire (1911–1913,
Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum), a work that the critic admired greatly, Chagall
demonstrated his friendship and gratitude to Apollinaire as well as to
Cendrars, Canudo and Herwarth Walden, whose names he wrote on the canvas around
a heart. Gradually won over by Chagall’s uniqueness, Apollinaire introduced the
artist to Walden in March 1913. Walden then invited Chagall to participate in
three exhibitions in his Der Sturm gallery in Berlin and organized the first
solo exhibition of his work in June 1914, presenting 34 paintings and
approximately 120 watercolours and drawings from the Paris period. This event,
hailed by critics, brought attention to Chagall in Germany and led to a greater
appreciation of him in France and Russia.

During his three years in Paris, Chagall
painted some major works – works that had a fundamental creative influence on
his art until the mid-1920s. While drawing on his memories, beliefs and dreams,
these paintings were nonetheless open to the world. Yet without pretending to
transform the world, he invites us to look at things in a different way, thanks
to his juxtapositions of the fantastic and the real, his introduction of
tragicomic situations and his bringing together of people and events in time
and space.

Painted in 1913, Paris through the Window (New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)
illustrates the artist’s evolution during his brief time in Paris and is
evidence of his attachment to the city. All of Paris belonged to him; Vitebsk
had disappeared from his architectural structures. The colours of the French
flag are seen alongside the Eiffel Tower and the polychromatic grid pattern of
the window attests to the fact that Chagall had adopted the style of his
contemporaries. He remained, however, deeply attached to his native Russia,
with the two-faced head symbolizing his dual affiliation.

Marc Chagall, quoted in Lassaigne 1957,
22.

This work is more informative in terms of the artist’s impressions and reflections than it is with respect to
specific temporal facts. For a detailed biography of Chagall, see Wullschlager
2008.

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